Story is from:

Great Sodus Bay

History, Reminiscences, Anecdotes and Legends

By Walter Henry Green (1947)

Page 175

Do you remember the winter of 1876-7?” “I never can forget it” said Raconteur. That was the winter that it snowed almost every day. The snow was the deepest that ever was known in the history of this region. It was over five feet deep and lay level over the top of the six rail fences. “Yes;” said Ex-student “and it was the winter of the great diphtheria epidemic which carried off seventeen pupils and students of Sodus Academy. For a while during the epidemic, there was a burial almost every day and Ben Hopkins with his team of oxen kept the road clear of snow between the village and the Sodus Rural Cemetery.”